Rebellion
by Jillian1
Summary: After ‘Never Again,’ Scully reflects on her actions and feelings. A little Scully/other (Ed Jerse), plenty of angst, but as always, a bit of MSR. Please read!


****

TITLE: Rebellion

****

AUTHOR: Jillian

****

FEEDBACK: YES! Everything and anything! Either at the site, or email me at JILLIBEAN@aol.com

****

ARCHIVE: Yes, if you want it, but I'd appreciate it if you let me know and kept headers in tact… I want bragging rights ;)

****

RATING: PG-13 for language and adult themes

****

SPOILERS: Never Again, small mention to something revealed to us in 'all things', but that had happened way back when in med school.

****

TIMEFRAME: Right after Never Again… The moment the screen goes black.

****

SUMMARY: After 'Never Again,' Scully reflects on her actions and feelings. A little Scully/other (Ed Jerse), plenty of angst, but as always, a bit of MSR. Please read!

****

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of them. They belong to this guy Chris Carter, who I, oh, I dunno, worship for creating them. If he sued me, I can't really say I'd be crushed if I got to meet him. I'm not making money off of these characters, just trying to explain a little something Chris left up to my imagination. No infringement was intended.

****

AUTHORS **NOTES**: This is not like the last few packed full of fluff stories I've posted. If you love fluff in abounding amounts, go read my fics Hiding Your Feelings one and two, involving babysitting and dinner at Mom's. Those are my ultra fluffy stories. Most others have a nice fluff to angst ratio, but beware… I don't think there is a hint of fluff in this… Raw emotion ahead! However, there is love somewhere, MSR love, of course.

Scully POV

* * * * * * * 

The silence in the office is painful. I'd rather be arguing with Mulder than sitting here, trying to figure out what the Hell I've gotten myself into. I silently sit in my seat, in my "area" of the office, where I have no desk. He doesn't even care. He doesn't even care that I'm upset because I have no desk, no nameplate, no recognition.

It's always been his work, but I've been brought into it. I was sucked into it on demand but remained here by choice... Why doesn't he understand that? Why doesn't he see how much this hurts me? Why does it hurt me so much? Is it because, somewhere inside, I love him? 

I hate feeling that Mulder is that authoritative figure in the circle I go around in. I hate it because I want so badly for us to be equals. An office with two desks, two nameplates. I am his partner, and we ought to be equals. Yet I've let him boss me around and I've let him think he's working these cases alone... When he is so truly not.

He treats me like I'm going to answer his every command. 'Scully, I scheduled you an autopsy.' 'Scully, I left you some cases *I* want looked into.' I am a perfectly capable half of this department. Why don't I get to pick the cases? Do I want to? Do I want to be plagued by this like Mulder has been? It's too late. I already am. I'm stuck here, by my own choice, and I'm not following his commands anymore.

Which is why, I suppose, I went out with Ed Jerse. The feeling of being hit on by a man is not something I feel often. Sure, I get looks, but I haven't been on a date in years, since I got involved with the X-Files. So standing there, in a seedy tattoo parlor, a man with a beautiful tattoo and an even more beautiful face asks me to dinner after trying to have his alcohol induced tattoo covered up. Of course, I decline, because I am not a spontaneous person... I am Dana Scully. Dana Scully who does whatever Mulder tells her and sits around waiting for his command.

I didn't quite realize that until he persisted to order me around over the phone, and mock me no less. Is it so crazy that I *could* have a date? Does he find me unattractive, incapable of meeting men? I hung up with Mulder determined to do something spontaneous, something unusual. Something to prove that I wasn't waiting for his every command, that I wasn't unattractive, that I wasn't just some pushover, well behaved woman who sat at home dateless, having no fun.

So I called Ed. I figured, what could go wrong? It would just be a date, and maybe even turn into a fling. Everybody needs excitement, everybody's got to enjoy themselves once in a while... Especially Dana Scully, she always does. I always reach this point of rebellion. So I got dressed and went to his apartment. He wanted to take me to dinner, but I didn't want to be treated wonderfully. I didn't feel wonderful. I felt horrible. In a way, I was leading Ed on. I could never love him, even if I wanted to. I loved someone else... I just wanted fun. 

We got to the poorly lit crummy bar, dank and smoke-filled, and ordered drinks. I don't drink very often, and it doesn't take much to get me drunk, but I didn't care. Dana Scully was a girl who excelled in all she did, went to church, passed all her tests, and was well-behaved. Dana Scully grew up and graduated top of her class in med school, went to Quantico, and became a lovely young woman. An agent who did exactly as told. For just one night... I didn't want to be Dana Scully anymore.

Instead of the well-known Dana Scully, I was the Dana who smoked her mother's cigarettes, hoping somewhere inside she got caught. The Dana Scully who snuck into R-rated movies, and occasionally just didn't study so she could show everyone she wasn't just a nerdy goody-two-shoes. Then, I went to medical school and again was seen as the good Dana Scully. Being old enough to know failing a test wouldn't help, I slept with Daniel, my married med school teacher. It started out as a stupid fling, but he fell for me, and in a way, I fell for him. I didn't want to break up his family so I left. Then I went to Quantico. Same thing happened--and that time I got involved with my instructor Jack Willis. Both of those times, I shouldn't have been with those people... They were superiors, and one was married. The rebellious, cigarette smoking, seductress Dana Scully did not care.

That was who I was in the bar that night, downing alcohol and flirting with a man I barely knew. Slightly drunk, I took his arm and asked to see the tattoo. Hell, why not rip our clothes off right then and there? Just so I can get through this stupid circle of mine and get home? He wouldn't show me it. And then he said it. 

"If you're so curious, why don't you get your own?"

My father would have killed me. Mulder would have killed me. My mother would have killed me. My brothers would have killed me. What was I thinking? Just getting up, with a strange man, drunk, and stumbling into a tattoo parlor? I knew what I wanted. The snake eating it's own tail. Let's mark the moment Dana Scully reveled in the rebellion of her little circle. Until she fucks up one day worse than I did this time, and I'll consume myself. I'm close enough as it is.

It hurt, but I have a high tolerance of pain. The adrenaline rush was amazing, and we drove back to his place. We should have called a cab, but I didn't want to be responsible. I follow him up to his room, not knowing what I want. Do I want to prove Mulder wrong? Not only can I get a date, but I can get some too? I swear, I was going to go back to the hotel, I was so close to getting out with just a tattoo, when he said it. "It's really bad out. Look, with the weather and a few drinks under you're belt, I'd feel better if you stayed here." He pauses. "Hey, I'm not up to anything, I just want you to be safe. I'll take the couch."

So, I oblige. What could go wrong? I noticed the blood on his arm, and looked at the tattoo again. It was burned, and I went to touch it. He forcefully grabbed my wrist, tiny compared to his own, and moved close to me. We locked eyes and I took a deep breath, taking in his scent. Alcohol, smoke... Rebellion. Still holding my wrist, we go closer and closer and the hold becomes gentler and gentler and our lips touch. No fireworks. I didn't expect them. I knew I didn't love him. I knew it was just about the circle I went around in.

I don't think he knew what he started when he kissed me. Minutes later, we were making out like teenagers on his couch. I had expected to be ashamed of myself, but I wasn't. I was not special Agent Dana Scully to him, I was some cute redhead he met in a tattoo parlor. That was all I really wanted to be. I wanted to step out of my own shoes and walk a day as someone else. To see if I really wanted to be a half of the X-Files. He pulled away and whispered something about the bedroom, but I wasn't listening. I just kissed him again. This Dana Scully doesn't do bedrooms.

I woke up on top of Ed on the couch at four-thirty in the morning with a pounding headache and stiff back, not to mention some lingering regret in my mind. At that point, in the sense of would I rather act like this all the time than be a part of the X-Files, I knew my answer. I didn't handle hangovers well, but I could still stomach an autopsy. My mind had shifted back to the current situation... What would Mulder think? I'd gone out, got drunk, tattooed, and slept with some guy on his couch. Wonderful. My father would disown me... But isn't that why I did it? For the thrill? As long as I didn't get caught, everything worked out. In the shirt Ed gave me to sleep in, I padded over to his bedroom and laid down.

Suddenly, I was Special Agent Dana Scully again. What had I done? Why had I done it? I didn't love Ed, I love Mulder. And I realized it then, more than ever. The reason I was so hurt by being treated like something below him was because all I really wanted was to be seen by him as something more. It may be my life but *he* was the reason I made a lot of my decisions... Good and bad.

Of course, morning came with it's consequences. This time, unlike all the others, I really was, excuse my expression, caught with my pants down. The police came to the door to tell me Ed's blood was in that woman's apartment. Even when he convinced me otherwise, I knew he had killed her. I knew I had messed up big time, because I was Special Agent Dana Scully again. And Ed found that out, and he didn't like it. So the voice in his head (I really know how to pick 'em...) told him to kill me. 

In a sense, Mulder caught me. He doesn't *know* I did what I did, but he could easily infer and I'm sure he assumes it. He knows about the tattoo, and the struggle at Ed's in the morning. He's an Oxford educated psychologist, he'll put the pieces together. The worst is he knows what is inevitably the truth, that he was the reason for it. He, somehow, turned my life around and became the authority figure. The father. And Ed Jerse was the rebellion. The cigarette. And that tattoo, that was the proof, the menacing reminder of what I had done, the reason I will never forget about my little circle and my fling with a murderer. Not that I necessarily regret it, I suppose it had to be done, I had to realize eventually that the way Mulder treats me, even though I love him, isn't fair.

Now I'm sitting here, softly stroking the dying rose petal on *his* desk. Not mine. The rebellious Dana Scully wants to forget where she is, and just tell Mulder everything. That she loves him. That she demands better treatment. Then I would lock the door and kiss him, throw him down on that God damned desk of his, and forget that fraternizing between partners is looked down upon here at the Bureau. But that part of the circle was wasted on Ed, as if Mulder was not the only thought in my mind the entire time I was in Philadelphia. I just hadn't wanted to fall for Mulder, because it didn't seem that by the way he was treating me, that he deserved me--and he didn't. Still, looking up at those eyes, those big full lips, I still wish that I would tell him. That I could lock that door and claim them and that he would love me back.

"Where's the case on the missing child?" I ask, finally. He goes through his things and gets it for me. No kiss. No confession. Just a helpful partner who loves him.

I'm back to Special Agent Dr. Dana Katherine Scully.


End file.
